They didn’t have a chance against a surge of gravity and water so powerful the force blew out the road crossing.

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The U.S. Geological Survey later reported that Counselor Creek peaked at 18.2 feet and was flowing at 11,000 to 12,000 feet per second. USGS called this “significant” for such a small basin and was similar to the flow one June day three years ago.

Emergency crews found Michalek about 100 yards downstream, still in her car. They had to cover four miles before they found Wright.

How were they supposed to know the road was gone? These days, we frequently don’t seem to know what we thought we did when it comes to water and weather.

Flooding concerns

The other afternoon, Jodi Farhat from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers explained to a committee of our Legislature that the corps last winter thought it was ready for what might come pouring down the Missouri River this spring and summer.

She said the corps had cleared enough space in the Missouri River reservoirs as of Jan. 28 to handle record-high precipitation dating from more than 100 years ago.

We all know how that’s turning out.

The corps is sending record amounts of water crashing through the dams, flooding parts of Pierre, Fort Pierre, Dakota Dunes and other places downstream, including part of Interstate 29 in Nebraska.

There’s too much water in too many places in the Dakotas, and it’s getting worse by the year of late.

On Friday, the state Board of Water and Natural Resources approved a $593,000 grant and loan package for Bison in Perkins County, in the shortgrass country where rainfall typically is scarce. This summer many of the 333 people in Bison are tired of their properties being ruined by floodwater.

They will use the money to pay for installation of a storm sewer system. Likewise, Brookings received a $483,538 loan from the board Friday for building a detention pond in a subdivision to handle storm water from a 100-year rain.

The first question that popped into my mind was whether we really have any idea what a once-in-100 years rain is in Brookings. The second question was whether the past matters any more as we try to out-engineer nature.

The Missouri River shows us why. With 130,000 to 160,000 cubic feet per second roaring out of the four dams in South Dakota, we have to wonder whether management needs to change so there isn’t a repeat of 2011.

We now know the hard way that the reservoirs are barely large enough to handle what’s happened so far this year. They’ve been on the razor’s edge, in the words of one corps official.

The talk among some Pierre and Fort Pierre residents is that Lake Oahe might need to be held at lower levels in future years, just in case. For recreation users of the reservoir, that means greater distances down boat ramps and from campgrounds to the water. It can also affect fish reproduction.

One friend who likes Oahe at higher levels for boating and diving said the other day that the corps needs to exercise adult judgment when people complain Oahe is too low.

“My daughter asks for candy every day. That doesn’t mean I give it to her,” he said.

Northeastern South Dakota

So it goes. Northeastern South Dakota has struggled with high water for years now. All of this reminds us we’ve been told that much of South Dakota was once the bottom of a great inland sea.

The state Department of Transportation is spending millions of dollars to raise roads that suddenly have become too low, such as state Highway 10 last year in Brown County and U.S. Highway 12 east of Roscoe.

DOT has needed to close state highways because of water and debris this spring and summer. In recent winters, DOT has repeatedly needed to close the interstate highways because plows couldn’t safely keep pace with snowstorms.

Fort Pierre and Dakota Dunes needed emergency loans from the governor this month because they were facing financial insolvency as a result of the expenses fighting the Missouri River flooding.

The severity of the weather causes problems that often aren’t anticipated. How does a city snowplow clean out a cul-de-sac when there’s no place to push the snow?

Building a pile and trucking it out is much more expensive than the standard way on a straight street of several passes by the plow. Then taxpayers wonder why the local government goes through its snow removal budget so fast.

Back when Bill Clinton was our nation’s president, two members of his administration came to Pierre and spoke on climate change at the national convention of the Izaak Walton League. In their comments to the outdoorsmen and women, they disagreed on the causes but agreed climate change was happening.

They also predicted more extreme weather events. Those words keep coming back to mind. So does the old saying: “Red sky at morning, sailors take warning/ Red sky at night, sailors’ delight.” At least we know some things that hold true.